2010 Is Now Tied For Hottest Year on Record (So Far)

New NOAA temperature data has been released including August temperatures and this year's record-setting global trend continues: "For January-August 2010, the global land and ocean surface temperature of 14.7°C tied with 1998 as the warmest January-August period on record. This value is 0.67°C above the 20th century average." August itself went down in history as being among the warmest recorded as well.Looking at combined global land and ocean surface temperatures, August 2010 was the third warmest on record, with August 1998 still holding that title and August 2009 coming in second. Last month global average temps were 0.6°C above the 20th century average. Just looking at land temperatures, August 2010 was the second hottest recorded, behind 1998, with temps running 0.9°C above average.

The northern hemisphere summer as a whole was the second warmest on record, global average temperatures (combined land and ocean surface) were 1.0°C above average. Again, 1998 here too holds the record.

TreeHugger readers in the eastern half of the US should be reassured that the severity of this summer's heatwaves was as bad as you thought: NOAA reports that the biggest variations from normal average temps occurred in the the eastern part of the contiguous US, across eastern Canada and much of Europe. Northwest Africa and parts of Asia 2also experience markedly higher temperatures than normal. Cooler-than-average conditions prevailed across southern South America, central Russia, and most of Australia.

For the year as a whole to date, the warmest temperature anomalies were observed in Canada, the northern part of the United States, southern Greenland, Africa, southwest Asia and the tropical portions of the North Atlantic Ocean. Cooler than normal temperature anomalies occurred across Central Asia, the non-equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean, and the southern oceans.